The Peter Package: A Saving Response to the Gospel

The following is a synopsis of my notes on Kingdom Initiation
which is Lesson 2 of AD250 Non-Negotiables Of Apostolic Christianity.
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THE PETER PACKAGE: A Valid Response to the Gospel

Repent, be baptized, receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and be added to the Lord’s Church

This is the New Testament Pattern for being born again, entering
Christ’s Eternal Kingdom and being added to His Church. We see this in
the book of Acts and throughout the New Testament!

1. One of the reasons for the present mess in the Church is that
many ministers have substituted the modern invitation system for “the
Peter Package.”

a. The advocates of the modern invitation system would have us believe that on the Day of Pentecost Peter declared,

“Now I want every head bowed and every eye closed, and while
James dims the lights and John plays softly on the organ, if you want
to receive Jesus as your personal Savior, I want you to raise your hand
and pray this simple prayer after me…”

This is not the pattern of the Apostles! It is not the way it was
done in the First Century! Read the Acts of the Apostles. Read the
Epistles! There is not one place in the New Testament where sinners
were told to simply pray the sinner’s prayer. The way sinners called on
the Name of the Lord was by getting themselves baptized into the Name!

b. Peter boldly commanded, “repent get yourself baptized into the Name of the Lord Jesus.”

Peter commanded them to obey the Gospel; He called for them to repent
and come to the water that separates and divides…that they might be
saved from a perverse generation and the coming wrath of God,
translated into the Kingdom of God’s Son and added to the Church!
(See Acts 2: 37-41; Acts 8: 35-37; Acts 19: 5, 6; Acts 22: 16)

Present Invitation System Problems and Examples:

• Charles E. Hackett, the division of home missions national director for the Assemblies of God in the U.S. said, “A
soul at the altar does not generate much excitement in some circles
because we realize approximately ninety-five out of every hundred will
not become integrated into the church. In fact, most of them will not
return for a second visit.”

• In his book Today’s Evangelism, Ernest C. Reisinger said of one outreach event, “It lasted eight days, and there were sixty-eight supposed conversions.” A month later, not one of the “converts” could be found.

• In 1991, organizers of a Salt Lake City concert encouraged follow-up. They said, “Less
then 5 percent of those who respond to an altar call during a public
crusade . . . are living a Christian life one year later.” In other words, more than 95 percent proved to be false converts.

• A pastor in Boulder, Colorado, sent a team to Russia in 1991 and
obtained 2,500 decisions. The next year, the team found only thirty
continuing in their faith. That’s a retention rate of 1.2 percent.

• In November 1970, a number of churches combined for a convention
in Fort Worth, Texas, and secured 30,000 decisions. Six months later,
the follow-up committee could only find thirty continuing in their
faith.

• A mass crusade reported 18,000 decisions—yet, according to Church
Growth magazine, 94 percent failed to become incorporated into a local
church.

• In Sacramento, California, a combined crusade yielded more than
2,000 commitments. One church followed up on fifty-two of those
decisions and couldn’t find one true convert.

• A leading U.S. denomination reported that during 1995 they secured
384,057 decisions but retained only 22,983 in fellowship. They couldn’t
account for 361,074 supposed conversions. That’s a 94 percent fall-away
rate.

• In the March/April 1993 issue of American Horizon, the national
director of home missions of a major U.S. denomination disclosed that
in 1991, 11,500 churches had obtained 294,784 decisions for Christ.
Unfortunately, they could find only 14,337 in fellowship. That means
that despite the usual intense follow-up, they couldn’t account for
approximately 280,000 of their “converts.”

What about God’s Word that says He is “able to keep you from stumbling, And to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy”
(Jude 24). Either He wasn’t able to keep these professed converts, or
His hand wasn’t in their profession of faith in the first place.

We are facing a fall-away rate of 84-97 percent. Some believe we need better follow-up. However, “following-up” with a false convert is like putting a stillborn baby into intensive care.

When did this Begin?

While there is debate over the exact origins of this practice, most
agree that it came into prominence in the 1830’s with Charles Finney
(1792-1875), who popularized it through the mourner’s bench or anxious
bench (some today call it the “altar”).

Dr. Albert B. Dod, a professor of theology at Princeton Seminary at
the time of Mr. Finney’s ministry, pointed out the newness of the
practice and showed that this method was without historical precedent.
In his review of Finney’s Lectures on Revival, Professor Dod stated
that one will search in vain for a single example of this practice
before the 1820’s. [4] Instead, history tells us that whenever the
gospel was preached men were invited to Christ—not to decide at the end
of a sermon whether or not to perform some physical action.

Finney believed that the new birth and revival were not miracles (i.e.
something only God can do) but were states accomplished by means of the
proper use of the will. He knew that to arrive at regeneration and, on
a larger scale, revival, the will must be excited to action. Hence he
developed the “new measures,” one of which was the “anxious bench.”
In many ways, this anxious bench is the mother of our modern day
invitationalism. Reacting to Finney’s method, theologian R.L. Dabney
commented: “We have come to coolly accept the fact that forty-five out of fifty will eventually apostatize [fall away].”

On the other side of Finney was the veteran evangelist Asahel Nettleton
(d. 1844), whose converts stood. For instance, in Ashford, Connecticut
there were eighty-two converts, and only three spurious ones. In Rocky
Hill, Connecticut, there were eighty-six converts and they all were
standing strong after twenty-six years, according to their pastor.
Nettleton rigidly refused to offer public altar calls, believing that
it prematurely reaped what would turn out to be false converts. C. H.
Spurgeon, the Victorian “Prince of Preachers,” thought similarly.

Billy Sunday, D.L. Moody, and Billy Graham are other evangelists who
contributed to the widespread acceptance and use of the altar call.
Certainly, Graham is the one who is most related to the contemporary form of the altar call in use in many churches today.

Verse 37, please note Peter has just preached the Gospel of the
Kingdom, and now he is telling the Jews how to be saved! (See verse
40)

How many believe Peter was an apostle? How many believe he knew what to do to be saved?

a. "Repent…renounce all right to self-determination…renounce Satan, the world, and the self-life…"

1ll. Don Atkin defined repentance as “changing governments.”

b. “Get yourself baptized into the Name of Jesus Christ…”

This is something you do as an act of obedience. It is the way you
actually receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. It is the N.T.
way that you activate or release your faith. You may believe the Gospel
fully, but until you actually do what God commands, it is not faith!
Saving Faith is acting on the Gospel; it is obedience! And the way you
actually obey the Gospel is you get yourself baptized.

Baptism is the means by which you put off the old man and put on Christ! You get yourself baptized into the Name of Jesus Christ, into His death and into His resurrection! Baptism is the way in which you enter experientially into Christ’s death and resurrection which took place 2000 years ago!

It is the circumcision of your heart. (Baptism is the cutting off of the flesh and the receiving of a new heart. See Colossians 2: 10-13)

It is the way in which you are translated out of the Kingdom of Darkness and into the Kingdom of God’s Dear Son (Col.
1:13). (By the way, if we are already translated into the Kingdom of
God’s Son at conversion, then according to the Apostle Paul, the
Present Kingdom must be the promised Messianic Kingdom of David’s Son,
rather than some future earthly Jewish Millennial Kingdom! How many
Kingdoms does The Lord Jesus have?)

c. Then you receive the Holy Spirit…

This is God’s promise to the fathers of Israel. All the prophets
of Israel promised that in Messiah’s Day, the age of Messiah’s Kingdom,
God would pour out the Spirit upon all flesh!
This is the promise of God! It is one of the essential benefits of the New Covenant and the birthright of every believer! Everything Jesus did He did so you might receive the Holy Spirit!
(John the Baptist’s testimony) The Holy Spirit is the indwelling
Christ; The Lord Jesus is enthroned at the right hand of God in heaven;
it is the Holy Spirit who actually comes to dwell within our human
spirit, not the Lord Jesus.

The Holy Spirit Himself is the seal or witness of God the Father that we are the children of God!
When we obey the Gospel and get ourselves baptized, we are actually
entering into the New Covenant and setting our seal of obedience to the
New Covenant. When God fills us with the Holy Spirit, He is setting His
seal to the covenant.

We don’t need a minister to confirm or assure us that we are born
again or saved. God Himself assures us by filling us with the Holy
Spirit.

d. Then we are added to the Church…

It is important to note, that we are immediately added to the general assembly or the Church in heaven…
(Turn to Hebrews 12:22-24). When we repent, get ourselves baptized into
Christ’s death and raised into His life, we become members of the
General Assembly, the Church of the first-born Son of God…the body of
Christ. This is automatic! You don’t join the Church of your choice; No, no, the Holy Spirit Himself adds you to the general assembly, the body of Christ!

But after the Holy Spirit adds you, He puts you in the body as it
pleases Him! You find placement in a locality or city in an allotment
of believers under true apostolic and pastoral oversight. (I Cor.12: 18; Psalm 68: 6, 18, Eph.4: 16; John 14: 1; II Sam. 7 10; I Peter 5:3)

How many understand that the Church is one? But it is made up of
many allotments of believers. It is important to understand that the
true Church is General assembly, before it is local.

e. Once you have find placement in an allotment (congregation) in a
locality (City), then you voluntarily or freely submit yourself to be
discipled or taught to obey Christ’s commands, “teaching them to do all
I have commanded you…(Matt.28: 19-20).”

Ill. Paul left Timothy at Ephesus to set in order the things that were lacking and to teach the disciples there, the sons and daughters of the Kingdom of God, “how to behave in the House of God.”

Ill. The Epistles all have a doctrinal section and a practical…See
Ephesians… The practical sections teach the sons and daughters of God
how to behave in the family of God or the "household of faith."

From
Pastor B. Samuel rajubabu
Good news outreach social welfare organization
Chitrada post
Pithapuram mandal
E.G.DISTRICT
Andhra Pradesh
South India
Pin no: 533450
Mobile no: 009848618735
Sub; kindly pray for the ministry
Greetings from distant south India, I would like to introduce my self as Pastor Samuel rajububabu doing ministry for 20 years in village of chitrada. I am keeping request before you with much respect regarding church construction. After much labour in gospel work people are coming to Christ in our village.As our village is full of illitrares and poor we are giving them new life for their survival like sewing center. many are like widows ,orphan children , old age ,physically handicapped,effected HIV/AIDS,effected CANCER,We are giving them CLOTHES,FOOD,SHELTER and we cannot proceed as this is full of need in money.May be in future we cannot feed them because we are lack of money.we need of another hand to continue this work and to proceed.please kindly pray for the ministry and GOD's GRACE. .Please support us to procced and to develop the ministry. We are need of church building, so with much difficulty we bought piece of land for church building with local donation, but we are left without church building. We arranged temporarily thatched shelter which is often falling due to heavy cyclone. I am ready to send our church plan and some of our pictures of our ministry. I am looking for your kind reply.hope to lisen from you soon.
Thanking you sir
In his service
Pastor Samuel rajubabu
India

John 1:31-34 31 I did not know Him; but that He should be reaelved to Israel, therefore I came baptizing with water. 32 And John bore witness, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. 33 I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' 34 And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God. (italics mine)My thought, from a surface examination, is that the Fourth Gospel seems to say that Jesus' baptism reveals He is the Son of God.

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